Dave Braun
Hey everyone! Welcome again to the HireMyVA Team and Business Building Podcast, where we help you to reclaim your freedom through hiring and thriving with virtual assistants without breaking your bank. I said, breaking your bank, not breaking your back, which that could happen to you, but not breaking the bank. Hey, I’m Dave Braun. I’m here with my partner, former Green Beret, great hotelier, amazing person. Larry Broughton. Hey there Larry!
Larry Broughton
00:00:27
Thank you Dave! can you shout, man?
Dave Braun
00:00:30
There you go. Hey, let’s get into our topic right away. All right, so question somebody asked is will they steal from me if I give them access to sensitive information or even just give them access to some money somehow? will they steal from me? What do I do about that?
Larry Broughton
00:00:52
Yes, they will – If you hire the wrong people. For crying out loud, that can happen and you know, a life circumstance where somebody is working right side by side with you, right? So half joking about that. You know, we are humans, all of us, even the people that you hire they’re there will be some flawed people. I have heard stories of that happening. And it’s good that you’re asking the question is a smart question to be asking, but I think it’s like any relationship that you get into, because this is a relationship you’re building with someone you don’t give them the keys to the kingdom or a copy of your will the first time you go on a date with somebody, right? You have to earn and build trust. And so, Dave, I think what would be really good is that people set little thresholds along the way to build trust and to find out are they, is this someone that I can actually give the credit card to or share the really the secret sauce with?
Larry Broughton
00:01:54
There are some things you’re always going to withhold – you have to. But if we want more freedom, we have to give up the reins to a lot of the things that we do. And so the, I think the thing that most people are afraid of is intellectual property and finances. Those are the two things that people are most concerned about stealing. And so there might be small things that you can do to build trust versus see, Hey, can I take this person to the next, next level, whether it’s with banking, whether it’s with proprietary information or whatever. But again, there are questions we can ask along the way during the hiring process to make sure that these are trustworthy people. Listen, I have been some of your folks who’ve been following me for a long time and know some of the backstory.
Larry Broughton
00:02:43
You want to know somebody who’s using images to scam. Like people are using my photos to scam people out of money. Just do Larry Broughton romance scam. Do that- Google search. If you want to go down a rabbit hole about how to scam people. Yes- If comes in and they want to do a long con with you, it’s called a long con and they want to get hired by you. And five years from now, they’re going to build up trust. And in five years, they’re going to empty your bank account. That rarely, rarely, rarely, rarely happens. Right? So I really wouldn’t worry about that. But surely I think it is a smart concern, Dave, for our business owners and solopreneurs to be concerned about is like, Hey, do I give him the credit card? Do I give him the bank account information during that first month? No, you don’t. You build trust along the way. You’ve done some great things with Daphne and the team, you know to let go of the purse strings and open up the vault,iIf you will. Do you want to share what you’ve done, Dave?
Dave Braun
00:03:47
Yeah. In fact, you know, Daphne, she’s my general virtual assistant. If you haven’t heard me talk about her, she is currently.
Larry Broughton
00:03:54
Oh gosh. Yes. She’s just a rockstar! Thank you, Daphne has played an integral part in developing or putting in the fancy pretty stuff to this program.
Dave Braun
00:04:04
She has, yeah. And so I ended up at some point, oh my gosh, it was, I waited way too long. I think I waited a year, at least a year before I actually gave her access to a credit card. And that was way too long. Just way too long. You should do something like that. If you’re going to hire a general virtual assistant, you need to do within a few months. But what I made sure I did is I had the credit card with a strict limit, which was, you know, I ended up doing 1500. You could do 500, whatever you want, the banks will work with you on that, that way you would prevent somebody from going rogue on you, you will understand and you’ll, you’ll be able to see that. And then the other thing that happened was it was very first time she used it. She was like, in fact, she doesn’t hardly ever use it because she’s so uncomfortable having that level of responsibility, you know, for finances. Cause it was like she said, oh, what if I put in the wrong number? What if I do something wrong? What if, you know, the card number gets stolen? And I’m like, well that happens to anybody.
Larry Broughton
00:05:13
But that means you got the right person if she had concerned as well.
Dave Braun
00:05:16
Yes. So she was, she was thinking the, the business finances are her finances as well, and that she wanted to make sure that she protected them appropriately.
Larry Broughton
00:05:28
Yeah. I think it’s really good to put limits on debit cards or credit cards. That’s really good. And the thing is if over time you add layers and levels of responsibility and you trust people more that builds confidence in your team members as well that, Hey, they trust me a little, little bit more. I must be doing a great job. I would be wary of those folks who come on board and immediately want access to your stuff. I’ve seen those people too. And I’ll be, you know, I’m generally pretty transparent and open about this kind of stuff. I’ve had people in both virtual folks who’ve done work with me, who I just felt like weren’t getting giving value. And it was, you know, which is basically the same thing as ripping you off, like intentionally ripping you off. And I’ve had people who work inside my office or at one of our properties who has stolen from us or done nefarious things, you know, shared confidential information about deals that we were doing or literally stolen cash.
Larry Broughton
00:06:35
Or in one case, a guy was copying credit cards. He was a night auditor or working at one of the hotels and then selling those numbers. There are, there are people that are out to do nefarious activity, no matter what you do in this part of the business, but do I’m begging you set up systems where you can actually check and double-check that money’s not being stolen. Credit cards, aren’t being abused and proprietary information is not being shared. There’s ways to do that. And again, if you’ve got questions about this and then I hammer this all the time, go to the community forum, ask questions, Hey, I’m having this problem. Or I’m having this suspicion, what do you guys think or about to fill in the blank? I’m about to give access to my credit card. I think the checks and balances that should be doing, and I promise you other people in the community, Dave and I and our other administrators will be coming on board and helping you through that process. It’s what the communities for.
Dave Braun
00:07:34
Yeah. And what you’ll find is you will be uncomfortable the very first time that you do it, you’ll be uncomfortable. And that’s the point where you would say, okay, let me watch a little bit closer. But as you do this more and more and more, you will open up faster and faster because you realize as you open up faster and faster, that means your business is going to grow faster and faster. You’re getting more and more stuff off of your plate, which is really, really important.
Larry Broughton
00:08:00
Here is freedom. We want more freedom. If we’re micromanaging every single process that’s adding work and burden to our lives and not offering freedom. And with risk, like it takes a little bit of risk. Even in a relationship, let’s say you’re falling in love with somebody, right? That’s risky. What’s the risk that can be rejected. But the same way with our team members. But you got to risk a little bit in order for, to get the true reward of, of the great benefits of having a rockstar virtual assistant team to help you grow your business, expand your wealth, create more legacy for you and your family and retain the freedom that we all want in life.
Dave Braun
00:08:41
Right! and we want you guys to get the shortcuts that we’ve developed over the years to go a lot faster than we did when we first started. Oh my gosh. And then it took me months and months. In fact, I’ve worked with several clients who have, they’ve struggled with when to give the keys to the kingdom. Meaning like from a web development perspective, which is one of the things that I do is they would give like root access to their server or something. They were like, oh my God, I’m so scared. Cause they could really screw me. Well guess what happened? Everything was great – They loved it! And then the next VA that they ended up hiring, they gave it to them so much more faster, so much more faster, more, better, much more, better, much more better. So that the key thing here folks is, with this and with so many of these issues is hiring right the first time having the right process and then being able to manage appropriately and have the right systems in place where you can do the checks.
Larry Broughton
00:9:40
Yep. That’s awesome. Good. Anything else, Dave? I think I’m good. How about you? I’ve got it. This is good. Let’s go!
Dave Braun
00:09:41
All right. Well let’s close up and thanks again for listening folks. Remember building a team is the way to reclaim your freedom. Remember that’s what Larry just talked about. That’s what this is about – that’s why we’re in business is to get freedom, to be able to do what we want with who we want and when we want and we’re here to help you get that freedom. So, but three things for us, if you find value out of what we’re doing here, we’d love your, do these things. Subscribe to the podcast. Number one, subscribe to the podcast, if you haven’t already done. So we’ll keep bringing these tips and tricks to you. We like to keep them short and punchy so that you can get some value, you know, every day or every week.
Dave Braun
00:10:29
And then give us a rating that really helped give us a five-star rating, hopefully on our podcast. And then number three is just go to hiremyva.com and see all this stuff that we’ve got there to help our course and community. You can purchase that there through our course, through our community. You’re going to be able to learn how to prepare for hire and thrive with virtual assistants, Larry and I love to help people. We’ve helped dozens, hundreds of people in businesses, and we can help you too. So just go to hiremyva.com for more information, have an awesome rest of the day.
Larry Broughton
00:11:02
All right, folks, peace out, go get them!
